Chasing Perfect? No Thanks.
Perfection sounds nice, but growth makes life way more interesting.
Hey friends,
Today, I want to talk about perfection, and mostly, our modern society’s constant strive to achieve it. How often do you wonder if you can bring something to perfection? For me, it’s more than I can count. There’s something about perfection that pulls us in. It makes us believe that if we could just get everything right, life would be easier. We wouldn’t have to worry about mistakes, and even more important than that, we wouldn’t have to feel embarrassed.
Everything would be smooth, effortless, flawless. But I’ve been thinking… isn’t perfection actually kind of boring?
I mean, imagine the perfect person. Someone who never messes up, never struggles, never second-guesses anything. They always have the right answer, they ace every work task they ever get. They never trip over their words, and they never have an awkward moment. Sounds impressive, right? But would you actually want to hang out with them? Would you feel comfortable around them?
I don’t think I would. I think I’d be suspicious of them as they’ll seem uncanny. And I’d probably feel a little uneasy myself. Like I couldn’t be myself.
At the end of the day, real people mess up. Like all the time. We say the wrong thing sometimes. We laugh at the wrong moment. We spill coffee on our shirts. We try new things and fail spectacularly. Sometimes, we fail at things we’ve done a thousand times before as well. But then we try again. That’s what makes life interesting.
As the song by Chumbawamba goes, ‘I get knocked down, but I get up again’.
Perfection, on the other hand, is predictable. It’s a straight road with no bumps, no detours, no surprises. Where’s the fun in that, right? I mean, I know it seems awesome, but I doubt the feeling would last. Growth, on the other hand, is full of surprises. It’s falling down and getting back up. It’s looking back at where you started and realizing how far you’ve come. It’s making mistakes and learning from them. And you don’t even have to learn the first time you make a mistake, you can repeat it a few times before it truly sinks in!
Think about a baby learning to walk. They don’t just stand up one day and take off running. They wobble. They fall. They cry. They grab onto things. They try again. And eventually, they take a step. Then another. And before you know it, they’re running all over the place, getting into everything and getting on your nerves. The process is quite messy. But it’s also amazing to be there and watch it unfold.
Now imagine if a baby decided ‘Nope, I’m not walking until I can do it perfectly’. That would be ridiculous, right? But that’s what a lot of us do. We hold ourselves back because we’re afraid of doing something badly. We spend so much time thinking What if I look stupid? What if I fail? What if I’m not good enough? that it’s honestly borderline idiotic. So instead of trying, we just… well, don’t.
We wait for that perfect moment. We put things off till better days. We tell ourselves we’ll start when we’re ready. When we have it all figured out.
I am pretty sure I don’t have to tell you, but I will anyway. Nobody ever has it all figured out. Nobody starts off as an expert. Every great artist, every amazing musician, every successful person you admire started as a beginner. And they for sure sucked when they started. They all had moments where they doubted themselves. They all made mistakes. But they didn’t stop. They kept going. And that’s what made them great – not perfection, but persistence. Okay, I know some people have a natural inclination or a talent for specific things, but still – persistence is the key ingredient.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately because I’ve realized how many times I’ve let perfection stop me from doing things. There have been so many times when I wanted to try something new but hesitated because I thought the result would be laughed at. Times when I wanted to put a small info product out there but didn’t because I wasn’t sure if it was good enough. Times when I thought about starting something but got stuck trying to plan it perfectly before I even began.
And honestly? I’ve missed out because of it. I feel like I’ve wasted time waiting for the right moment when I could have just started and figured things out along the way.
That’s why I plan to shift my focus from perfection to growth. It’s hard to see mistakes only as part of the process instead of proof that we’re not good enough. But it’s the right way to look at things and I am trying to make this my default outlook on things.
Plus, the things we remember most aren’t the perfect moments. They’re the ones where we took a leap, even when we weren’t sure. The ones where we laughed at our mistakes instead of feeling embarrassed. The ones where we kept going, even when it was hard.
All this rambling is to tell you to act now if you’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to start something (whether it’s learning a new skill, a new project, or just something you’ve always wanted to try). Not because now is the best time to start or because you’ll do it perfectly, but because you’ll grow in the process. And honestly, that’s way more interesting.
One of my favorite Chinese proverbs says it best.
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is today.
Thanks for reading and sharing the newsletters with friends. It’s the main way I reach new people who might find value in what I have to say.
Best,
Dobri 🍃